Following undergraduate studies at Dartmouth College, Dr. Richard Margolese earned his M.D. from McGill University. He completed his residency at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and a fellowship at the Roswell Park Institute in Buffalo before joining the staff at the Jewish General Hospital (JGH). From 1997 to 2006, he served as Chief the Department of Oncology. He was among the first to recognize that more conservative surgeries could be as effect in treating breast cancer as radical mastectomies, and is an internationally recognized authority on breast conserving surgery for women with breast cancer.

Among the many honours conferred over his career, Dr. Margolese was named to the Order of Canada in 1997, received the R.M. Taylor Medal and Award from the Canadian Cancer Society in 2000, and the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award of the National Surgical Breast and Bowel Project in 2006.

Dr. Margolese has participated in clinical research studies in breast cancer. He and his colleagues showed that radical breast surgery could be replaced by breast conserving surgery, and that adding chemotherapy and hormone therapies such as tamoxifen could improve long-term outcomes by diminishing the rate of recurrence. In one trial, comparing tamoxifen after surgery to surgery alone, they showed that not only was the cure rate improved but that new cancers in the opposite breast were diminished. This led to the idea of prevention and, indeed, two prevention trials successfully showed that approximately half of the cancers could be prevented in selective women with high risk profiles. These trials continue and Dr. Margolese continues his involvement in modern clinical trials.